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Karle Wilson, daughter of Kate Florence Montgomery Wilson and William Thomas Murphey Wilson, was born on October 13, 1878 in Little Rock, Arkansas. She attended public schools, Little Rock Academy, and Ouachita Baptist College. When she was nineteen, she enrolled at the University of Chicago for a year and two or three summers, where she studied under poet William Vaughn Moody and novelist Robert Herrick. For two years during the long term she taught at a girl's school in Bristol, Virginia. The final "e" in her first name was added in 1893 to help avert mistakes in gender, but her name continued to be mistaken for a man's throughout her life by fans and reviewers.
In 1897 W. T. Wilson's wholesale grocery business in Little Rock failed and he decided to start a grain and feed company in Nacogdoches and moved the family there. Karle first came to Nacogdoches in 1901, returned to Little Rock to teach high school for two years, then came back to Nacogdoches, where she helped care for her mother, who was in poor health. Engaged in free-lance writing, she published poetry, short stories, essays, and articles in many of the popular magazines, such as REDBOOK, CENTURY, SCRIBNER'S, HARPER'S, and McCALL'S. She was supporting herself with her earnings shortly before she married Thomas Ellis Baker, a Nacogdoches banker. They had two children, Thomas Wilson born in 1908 and Charlotte born in 1910. The son became a banker and the daughter, now Charlotte Baker Montgomery, is author and illustrator of numerous children's books and two adult novels.
Yale University Press published Karle's first two collections of poetry, BLUE SMOKE (1919) and BURNING BUSH (1922), her children's fantasy THE GARDEN OF THE PLYNCK (1920), and OLD COINS (1923), a collection of prose tales. Southwest Press published THE BIRDS OF TANGLEWOOD, essays on Nacogdoches bird life, in 1930, and DREAMERS ON HORSEBACK, collected poems, in 1931. She wrote two readers for school children, TEXAS FLAG PRIMER (1926) and TWO LITTLE TEXANS (1932), both published by the World Book Company. TEXAS FLAG PRIMER was a state adopted textbook from 1926 to 1929. FAMILY STYLE, a novel about the East Texas oil boom, was published by Coward-McCann in 1937. STAR OF THE WILDERNESS, focusing on the early phases of the Texas Revolution, Dr. James Grant, the New Orleans Greys, and the Siege of Bexar, was published in 1942, also by Coward-McCann. STAR OF THE WILDERNESS became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.
Karle taught in the English Department at Stephen F. Austin State University from 1924 to 1934, and lectured at colleges, women's clubs, and literary organizations throughout the state. The dramatic club at SEA and the literary club at Texas Woman's University were named for her. She corresponded with many of the prominent writers of her day, and the papers include letters from Theodore Dreiser, Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Amy Lowell, Louis Untermeyer, and Sara Teasdale, as well as many Texan and Southwestern writers. A charter member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Poetry Society of Texas, and Philosophical Society of Texas, Karle was third to be named a Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters, after J. Frank Dobie and Walter Prescott Webb. Karle died in Nacogdoches on November 8, 1960 at the age of 82.
(Inventory of the Karle Wilson Baker Papers. author unknown. East Texas Research Center.
and "BAKER, KARLE WILSON." The Handbook of Texas Online. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/BB/fba36.html [Accessed Fri Jun 4 13:47:17 US/Central 2004 ])

Scope and Content Note

The Karle Wilson Baker Papers include diaries; manuscripts; correspondence with publishers, editors, writers, fans, friends, and organizations; newspaper clippings and other biographical materials; photographs; and historical research materials, including some original materials dating back to the 1830's.
An account of Karle's girlhood activities can be found in the Kate Florence Montgomery Wilson Journal, East Texas Research Center manuscript collection A-97. [56 Boxes, 3 Bundles, abt. 4400 Items]

This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is available for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the East Texas Research Center at asketrc@sfasu.edu.

This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is available for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the East Texas Research Center at asketrc@sfasu.edu.